The Paramount Chief of Kumawu, Barima Sarfo Tweneboah Koduah, has released 200,000 hectares of land to the Sekyere-Kumawu District Assembly in the Ashanti Region for development purposes.

The parcel of land stretches from Drobonso to Temante and was given principally in support of government’s efforts to create jobs and improve the economy.

The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Sekyere-Kumawu, Mr Samuel Addae Agyekum, commended the paramount chief for his gesture which he said would go a long way to provide a support base for the district’s development.

According to Mr Agyekum, who spoke to the Daily Graphic, the district assembly had plans of using part of the land to implement the government’s planting for food and jobs policy.

Additionally, he said other portions of the land would be used for cassava farm, the produce from which would be used to feed an ethanol factory that would be established in Kumawu before the end of the year.

Other initiatives to be established on the vast land, he said, would include cotton and peanut farms, an animal husbandry and poultry farm projects, among others.

He indicated that now that the district assembly was in possession of the land, it would look for investors both locally and abroad to put money into the ventures it intended to undertake.

Collaboration

Mr Agyekum pointed out that the assembly was liaising with the Kumawu Development and Investment Trust, a development-oriented local non-governmental organisation, to judiciously apportion the land among investors who showed interest in investing in the district.

The Kumawu Development and Investment Trust was formed a few years ago by some indigenes of Kumawu. It offers scholarship to brilliant but needy students and also provides entrepreneurial training to business people, as well as seeks investments for the district.

It is currently working with the Sekyere-Kumawu District Assembly to bring investors from China and other places to invest in various agri-business projects since the district has large tracts of arable land for agricultural purposes.

The DCE noted that he was hopeful that when the assembly entered into partnership with interested investors, the district would generate employment for the people in the district, while economic activities in the area would also be promoted.

He made it known that the assembly had registered 30 poultry farmers who had expressed interest in putting up farms in the district.

Mr Agyekum said the poultry farmers were registered following a memorandum of understanding that was signed with a Chinese firm which was also ready to establish a hatchery in the area to service poultry farmers in the district and the region as a whole.